This blog is created for students in Editing for Print (COMM 510) for the Fall 2007 semester at Wichita State University. But other readers and writers are welcome — and encouraged— to post comments, too.
See a headline that is misleading or doesn't make sense? Subject-verb agreement problems in a newspaper or magazine story? A lead on a story that doesn't make sense — or is too wordy? An ad that misses the mark? Sexism or racism in a story? A TV news piece that doesn't provide enough information, or takes a wrong angle? Point those issues out, and add your comments.
Les Anderson
Associate professor
Elliott School of Communication
Wichita State University
248 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 248 of 248The Fox news at 9 p.m. just showed a video package of Ford cars on a story specifically about a fuel-efficient Honda at Scholfield. In fact, they showed it twice in a row. Then, the weather came on with no audio. It's not a good day in their studio..
So on my way home from the movies I noticed the scrolling marquee in front of The Taco Shop had another mistake. (They really should get someone to check their marquee)
The scrolling said "Monterrey Superme " and obviously it should be Supreme. If anyone wants to, feel free to tell them their problem. It'll be doing them a favor.
There is a Veterans Day cartoon in the Nov. 12 edition of The Sunflower. The cartoon is in a nice rectangle area. It appears that there is not a title though. After looking closer, the title sits small in the lower right corner of the cartoon, not in the rectangle area. It is on top of one ad and in line with another. If the layout would have been better planned, the title would have been bigger and looked like a part of the cartoon.
Every week in the Dub-K the back page has the drink specials of local bars. While this is a great asset for the over 21 crowd, the bars don’t change from week-to-week. Once in awhile there are a few different bars, but I want to know the specials for other bars. The bars don’t have to be all in Wichita, either. I wouldn’t mind knowing what the bars in the surrounding areas offer too.
In the Nov. 19 issue of The Sunflower there is a story on the back page titled "Reesing Just Your Average Joe." At the bottom of the third paragraph "Texas" should be abbreviated. It should be written "Austin, Tex." since it is accompanied with the name of the city, and doesn't stand alone.
The "Softball" story continues on page three. In the fifth paragraph of the continuation, a sentence reads "She can't wait to have her daughter for Thanksgiving." The word "home" should be added after "daughter" in order to clarify the sentence. The way the original sentence read, it sounds like she hopes to give birth to her daughter on Thanksgiving. But the revision clarifies the fact that she can't wait to have her daughter home for the holiday.
On the back page of the Arts Section on the Nov. 25 edition of The Wichita Eagle there is a “Best Shot.” It is a beautiful picture and a place I would love to be right now. The photo caption is horrible though. It says “I took this picture at the tip of Gay Head on Martha’s Vineyard. I used my digital camera.” It then has a persons name and where they live. While I understand that this is a reader’s picture, but I don’t understand why the staff as The Eagle didn’t edit the caption. They could have easily edited the caption and made it much better.
I was reading a story on KSN's website about an explosion at Boeing. Well it was very brief and uninformative. I understand news people cannot have all the facts immediately on breaking news, but they could at least write some more details such as who is at Boeing at that time to work or something. It seemed like a bigger story than the way it was presented. I mean, a building exploded! Doesn't that call for more than a few sentences?
I saw an ad in the Eagle for KGPT channel 49. The headline read, "It's Free TV!". Well, ok I guess. Do they really want to advertise that it is free television because isn't everything going digital by 2009? Will people even be able to watch this channel for free soon? They have a number on the ad saying to come to the station for a free UHF antenna. What?! They still make those? This ad is like saying, "forget what is happening in today's world of television and wrap some tin foil on an antenna to watch TV like it used to be in the 70's!" Really KGPT? Get with the times.
In the article NEXT STEP: FINDING FUNDS Group must raise up to $865,000 for market's development costs the following appears in bold, for some reason.
"Exterior walls would be made of glass and stucco. Three primary building entries would reflect Spanish revival architecture similar to the historic Nomar Theater's architecture. Tenants and rent"
On a breaking news story about Emily Sander on kake.com, this sentence was posted:
"Sander and Mireles met that night at the bar.."
Another careless editing error on the part of Kake's online team.
In today's issue of the Dub-K in The Sunflower, on page 2, Angela Hampton's story titled "How to stick to a budget this holiday season":
In the third paragraph (the lone sentence), she says "But how do you keep your bank account as happy as your family and friends?"
"Friends" needs to be punctuated as possesive in some form, whether they have one friend (friend's) or several (friends'), the sentence is talking about the friend's/friends' bank account.
On the front page of Monday's edition of The Sunflower, the first story about Madecky has this sentence in the second column:
"The article in question was published Nov. 12 and was entitled 'Speaker stirs up past controversy.'"
Like Les has taught in class, headlines are not "entitled" to anything. It should be "titled."
An article out of Kansas City's KCTV online news station titled "Lovers' Quarrel Leads to Fiery Fight" has several things wrong with it.
1) "The 24-year-old victim said she told her girlfriend she was breaking up the relationship." Personally when I think of someone breaking up a relationship, he/she is the third party involved. I don't think this is the correct use of termonology.
2) The heading is terrible. After reading the story, there wasn't any fighting with fire at all. One girl set the other girl's car on fire. They didn't fight each other with fire and that's what the heading intends.
Another article on Kake.com about Emily Sander contained a sentence that says this:
"Police searching for a missing Kansas college student found the body a young woman about 50 miles east of El Dorado around 2:20pm Thursday."
It obviously does not make sense. "Of" needs to be inserted between "body" and "a"
On the ksn website, there is a story about Emily Sander. They refer to Butler Community college, but left "college" uncapitalized. It should have been capitalized in the story.
On ksn's website, there is a story about getting tatoos on you rlower back. This is a good story, although it could have used better word choice. Phrases such as "a lot" and descriptive words such as "really" were used. These are ok, although it could have been written better.
At kansas.com, there is an article titled, "Police searching for man, woman in shooting death". This headline doesn't flow well. The comma should have been taken out and replaced with "and".
On kake's website, there is a story about tax refunds. It is a short story about Kansans who did not receive their refunds. The story refers to it as, "Undelivered Refends". Should this be capitalized or not? It is in the middle of a sentence and I wasn't sure if that is a proper term or not.
Another story on ksn's website has some errors. The story states the names of homicide suspects. November is written as Nov. in the story which should be spelled out, and the third sentence is missing a period at the end. Just a few minor errors.
There was a short story on Kansas.com that describes a wreck that closed down the intersection of Pawnee and Rock Sunday afternoon. The story read, "The accident occurred just 2:30 pm police said." It appears that they left out the word "after" before the time.
I was checking news on google and read a headline that said, "It'sa Film About Rickles, Ya Dummy!". Well the headline needs a space between "it's" and "a", although maybe they meant for that. They also used "ya" which is unusual for a headline. I thought it was catchy, but could have been more descriptive.
As some are aware SPLURGE! magazine is back in print. However, the issue now on stands contain spelling errors and others. On page 20, coach Marshall is naming some of his favorite restaurants. SPLURGE! spelled Yia Yia's as YaYa's. There are two errors on page 73. A large monetary contributor to this city, Fran Jabara has his name mispelled as Javara. On that same page there is a picture of a woman with a caption for a name below the picture but they left it blank. Guess someone forgot who it was...
In the Monday Nov. 26 issue of The Sunflower News, the word "entitled" should be changed to "titled" in reference to an article the week before.
Also, I don't understand the reason for the use of quotation marks for 'files' and "exploring other actions" in the article about Madecky. What is the writer trying to proof by doing so? Sarcasm?
In the Wednesday Nov. 28 issue of The Sunflower News, it should be Half Past Autumn..." instead of "Hal Past Autumn..." The letter "f" is missing.
Also, in the article "Theater group set to perform latest show," it is confusing because it says "show" in the headline but "productions" in the first paragraph. So is there going to be one show or two?
In the Monday Nov. 26, 2007 edition of the Sunflower under the headline, "Daniels, MU could win national title", I noticed an error. A sentence in the third paragraph reads, "Anyone could feel the buzz around the city..." I think that the appropriate word would be "Everyone" instead of "Anyone".
In the Monday Dec. 3, 2007 edition of the Sunflower under the "News Briefs" section there is a blurb entitled "SGA proposes smoking ban near entrances". In the third paragraph my title should read, Amy Smith, campus issues committee chair. Also my quote in the fourth paragraph should say "...However, I'm in favor of promoting the health and well being of all students regardless of different personal choices."
In the Sept. 19 Sunflower, the cutline for the picture that appears with the volleyball story says, "Katie Niggemeyer digs for a ball during the second game of the UMKC game at Koch Arena Tuesday night." There are two problems with this cutline, the first being that it is Amanda Backes in the picture, not Niggemeyer. Second, the cutline should say, "during the second game of the UMKC match" (There is a difference between a game and a match. There are three to five games in each match.)
In the Oct. 26 Eagle, there was a story from NY Times writers that said, "The Syrians reported an attack by Israel in early September, which the Israelis have not confirmed." This statement is incorrect, as Israel had acknowledged the attack by that time. An article posted on the Jerusalem Post Web site on Oct. 3 said, "The censor did not release any details for publication, only allowing Israeli media to report that an unspecified 'military target' had been struck deep inside Syrian territory."
In the Nov. 7 Sunflower, the article about Phi Delta Theta's fundraiser has a wordy sentence, "Various local restaurants helped to donated the food for the meals." The sentence would sound better as, "Local restaurants donated food for the meals."
Also in the Nov. 7 Sunflower, on the back page, each of the jump labels said, "Please see SOMETHING on PAGE 7." (On page 7, the jumps were labeled correctly)
In the skybox of the Nov. 9 Eagle, there is a picture of WSU basketball player Gal Mekel driving to the basket with the words "Shocker defense flexes muscle" right next to it. I thought the Eagle should have used a defensive photo with that cutline, not an offensive one. They should have said something about offense if they were going to keep that picture there. (The picture also appeared in the sports section that day with a cutline about offense.)
On the front page of the Nov. 10 Eagle, there is a story about Wichita's new baseball team. The sidebar next to the story said, "Former Shocker star Josh Robertson joins Wingnuts ownership, 1D." (The front page story also identifies him as "Wingnuts general") The story on 1D identifies Nate Robertson as part of the ownership group and Josh as the general manager.
In the Nov. 19 Sunflower, a sentence at the top of the back page reads, "Indians manager and former Shocker catcher Eric Wedger named AL Manager of the Year." His name is Wedge, not Wedger.
Also on the back page of the Nov. 19 Sunflower, the end of the article "Reesing just your average Joe," doesn't make sense. The last sentence says, "I'm so motivated, I'm filling out my walk-on papers as we" As we what? I turned the page to see if there was more to the article, but there wasn't. I'm assuming the word speak was left out.
In the Nov. 29 edition of The Dub-K in the article “How to stick to a budget this holiday season,” the first tip in the story reads “Look and see how much you can actually afford…” However, this should read “See how much you can actually afford” because the “Look and” is not necessary.
In the same paper, the article “face off” has a drophead that reads “Results from a new gallery’s live art show will be unveiled at this months Final Friday.” However “this months” should be possessive.
Also in this article, one sentence reads, “The show claims roots in hip-hop era showdowns, where break-dancers would ‘battle’ to music in order to determine whose dance style was the ‘freshest’.” The final period should be inside the end quotation marks.
In the Nov. 26 edition of The Sunflower, the article titled “SAC’s Madecky ‘files’ complaint against Sunflower News editor” includes a quote from Mr. Madecky reading, “Even the Publications Board policy states ‘a disciplinary action is considered a personel action and is kept confidential…” However, “personel” is spelled incorrectly and should be “personal.”
In the Nov. 12 edition of The Sunflower, a sentence in the news brief titled “Stolen mo-ped brings charges against minors” reads, “On Nov. 1 a mo-ped was stolen from Lot 27 of the Wheatshocker apartments and reported to campus police.” This wording makes it sound like the mo-ped was reported to the police, not that the fact that it was stolen was reported. The sentence should be reworded so that it is less confusing.
In the same paper, the lead photograph has a caption saying that “C.L. Lindsay stands in front of a screen at the CAC Theatre…” This caption should be rewritten tobe more interesting and informative, because the picture is clearly of a man standing in front of a screen.
In a letter to my church from the head pastor, a sentence reads “One opportunity we have to celebrate and worship is through our annual ‘King’s Birthday Offering’.” This should be corrected to have the period inside the end quotes.
I work at Bella Luna Café, and we have a huge sign on our front window that reads, “Half price Martini’s.” It just drives me crazy! “Martini’s” should not be possessive.
In the Oct. 11 edition of the Dub-K, the article titled “a display of spirit” reads, “ ‘If you think about it, its perfect because you’ve got that caring…” However, the “its” should have an apostrophe.
The same article makes the same mistake later by leaving the apostrophe out of another “its.”
In the same paper, the article about the Tallgrass Film Festival uses the phrase, “every single one,” in which “single” is unnecessary and should be omitted.
The same article has a sentence which reads, “The film, ‘Fat Girls,’ which was part of last year’s festival, has been picked up…” However, the first comma in the sentence should be omitted.
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